


Visions in Lightning, Voices in Thunder

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bad Mind Touch, Comfort, Gen, Storms, Tieflings Purr Because Yes, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 14:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14215215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Yasha closed her eyes, listening to the rain pound on the roof of the tavern, feeling the rumble of thunder through the floorboards, the white of the lightning flashing behind her eyelids. She was hoping the storm was just a storm and not a summons, she had only just gotten into town after all, and she’d like to have some time to actually get to know these people.





	Visions in Lightning, Voices in Thunder

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write this weeks ago, but then everything happened all at once and there were SO MANY fics to write and I got sick on top of that. Still, better late than not at all!

Yasha closed her eyes, listening to the rain pound on the roof of the tavern, feeling the rumble of thunder through the floorboards, the white of the lightning flashing behind her eyelids. She was hoping the storm was just a storm and not a summons, she had only _just_ gotten into town after all, and she’d like to have some time to actually get to _know_ these people.

The thunder rumbled loudly, the flash of lightning almost on top of it. Yasha turned her focus back to the storm, and soon enough the thunder became words, the lightning became visions. Ah, so that’s how it was going to be then. There was no helping it, she’d be leaving before morning.

Yasha got up and left Beau and Jester’s room as quietly as she had entered it, going down the hall and slipping back into the room that she had been sharing with Molly. His room had no windows, but she could still sense the lightning outside.

“You have to go, don’t you?”

Molly had been asleep when she had left, Yasha had been sure of that. Now he was awake, sitting up, knees tucked under his chin. The room was dark, but Yasha could still make out the sheen of sweat on his skin, and the fine tremble of his arms wrapped around his knees. Molly had always been prone to nightmares, but during thunderstorms most of all.

“I don’t have to go just yet,” Yasha said, which was true enough, even if her statement was met by a grumble of thunder from outside. The Stormlord may have saved her from what literally had felt like hell, but He could spare her a half hour so that she could comfort the person most dear to her, she felt.She sat next to him on the bed. “Bad dreams?”

“Probably,” Molly said, leaning over until his head rested on her shoulder, careful of his horns as he always was. “I don’t actually remember, I just woke up feeling terrible. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than remembering.”

Yasha thought about all the nightmares Molly had woken up screaming from, all the times she had woken up to hear him choking on his words, all the times he had lain as still as a dead thing, barely blinking. This was an improvement. She adjusted his position so that his head was on her chest and carded her fingers through his hair, occasionally scritching at the base of his horns. She smiled just a little when he began to purr.

“That’s hardly fair,” Molly murmured, but Yasha didn’t even have to look down to be able to tell that he was smiling.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you _want_ to continue feeling miserable? Because I could stop.” Yasha made as if to remove her hand and Molly’s purr turned into something like a growl.

“Please don’t.”

Yasha hadn’t been planning on it, not unless Molly really had wished her to stop. Molly was the only person she felt comfortable touching, the only person whose own touch didn’t make her uncomfortable, and she didn’t get many chances to indulge, as it were. They sat in near silence for awhile, the only sounds the ones of the storm and Molly’s purr rumbling softly against her chest.

“So what do you think of our little group?”

Yasha looked down at Molly, surprised. “Thought you had gone back to sleep.”

“No, just enjoying the quiet and then spoiling it, like I do.” Yasha could just see the curve of his grin, like the crescent of the moon behind a cloud. “So, your thoughts?

“I barely know them,” Yasha said, but she considered the question regardless. “Beau is…. awkward but earnest.”

“You forgot obnoxious and full of herself,” Molly said with a smirk.

“So like you, you mean?”

“I’m not obnoxious, I’m fabulous,” Molly declared.

“If that’s what you want to call it, sure.” Best to get in all the friendly teasing while they could, Stormlord only knew when they’d see each other again.

Molly chuckled. “All right, all right. What about Jester?”

“She’s so many things I’m not,” Yasha said quickly, because yes, it had been something she’d been thinking about.

There was a long beat of silence, and when Yasha looked down she caught Molly looking back up at her. “Care to elaborate on that?” Molly asked.

“She’s just so….open.” Yasha said after a moment. “She’s so free with her emotions, her thoughts, just… everything.” Yasha remembered her surprise when Jester had hugged her, the honest affection Yasha had seen on her face. “Life hasn’t made her close herself off yet.”

“I’d like to hope it won’t. Jester strikes me as someone with a highly resilient spirit, but at the same time, she feels everything so deeply. I think when the world hurts her, she’s going to feel it much harder than most, even if she does manage to bounce back from it.”

Yasha gave an affirmative hum, listening to the rain against the tavern roof for a long moment. “So who’s next? Nott? She’s a fierce one, though you wouldn’t guess that from a first glance. Scared of so many things but brave on other people’s behalf.”

“Oh she’s fierce all right, not to mention sneaky and possibly too clever for her own good. Been trying to direct her itchy little fingers towards folks who won’t miss whatever she takes from them, and I thought that lesson had stuck, then I found her going through Fjord’s things earlier today.”

Yasha frowned slightly. “What was she looking for?”

“Fjord’s recommendation letter to the Soltryce Academy, from the look of it. Probably to give to Caleb, though I like to think that was an idea that Nott came up with on her own and not something perhaps Caleb _asked_ her to do. I can’t be sure though. I think Nott’s loyalties are to Caleb first and everyone else second, but Caleb himself?” Molly’s tail thumped against the bed in agitation. “The man is a puzzle box I’m not sure I want to solve, but I can’t help poking at anyway. I don’t know if I’m going to find a music box or a demon at the center of him.”

That was an interesting mental image. Yasha thought about what Molly had told her about Caleb, about the fight down in the mines in Alfield. “You would know better than I would. I can tell he’s been broken, but I’m not sure what it is he’s using to try and piece himself back together.” Yasha knew from cracked, from broken, had used her faith to reforge herself. “I’d keep an eye on him, if I were you. There’s still some sharp edges to him.”

Molly chuckled. “I’m well acquainted with sharp edges.”

 _Yes, and you cut yourself on them all the time_ , Yasha thought to herself. _If he cuts you, will you bleed for him?_

Speaking of people to keep an eye on. “There’s something about Fjord. Something I can’t put my finger on, exactly.”

“He doesn’t trust me,” Molly said.

“Well, that just means he’s wise,” Yasha replied. “Has he been calling you out on the bullshit you use to test people?”

“Not straight up calling me out, no.” Yasha could hear the grin in Molly’s voice. “He _thinks_ he’s being subtle about that. I’m pretty sure he thinks he’s being subtle about a lot of things. The face he presents to us, I know a mask when I see one, me of all people, but I also know that some masks are more about defense than deception.”

“ ** _He has hidden depths, and in those depths something swims_**.” Yasha heard herself say those words, but it was like the words themselves had come from somewhere else, they tasted like lightning on her tongue. That didn’t frighten her. The words tasted like the storm outside, like the storm that was sometimes in her head and behind her eyes, and that was familiar.

Then, as suddenly as a riptide, the storm was gone. The sound of wind blowing rain against the tavern changed into something as rhythmic as the ocean tide, the dimness of the room became the depths of the sea, darkness filling her lungs like water as she gasped for breath. No matter where she looked she couldn’t see anything, but something was looking at her, she could feel it, she—

“Yasha?” Familiar hands on her shoulders. “Yasha? Come back to me.” Molly’s voice was firm, insistent, as loud as a crack of thunder in comparison to the dark depths of the ocean. “Wherever you are, it’s nowhere good.”

The darkness broke, and suddenly Yasha was back in familiar surroundings. She could feel the bed, see Molly’s eyes looking into her own as he knelt in front of her, hear the sounds of her own panicked breathing. The inside of her head felt like something had crawled around in there, something slimy, and she winced, rubbing at her forehead, but the sensation didn’t go away. She tasted salt in her mouth, as if she had tried to drink the sea.

“Yasha? Did you see something? You’ve never told me how your divine vision thing or whatever works, if that’s what that was. You were _gone_ and before that you barely sounded like you. What happened?”

Yasha shook her head and put a hand up, a silent request to wait. She listened to the storm, to the thunder and the lightning and the rain until she was in control of her own breathing again.

 _“Something was looking at me. In my head.”_ Yasha spoke in Celestial, in case whatever it was was listening, though she thought it was gone, if it had ever been anywhere except in her own mind. “ _I think it has something to do with Fjord, maybe something in him or something that just watches him, and I don’t know if Fjord knows about it or not. Just… keep an close eye on him.”_

 _“Did it hurt you?”_ Molly’s own words in Celestial had more of a hiss to them than they usually did, syllables sliding through the dark like a snake made of glass. In the dim sight that Yasha’s eyes possessed, she could just make out Molly’s expression. He looked like he had earlier in the sewers, seconds before he had cursed the spider, right before the bite to her collarbone. His face was full of righteous anger and resolve. He’d slay Fjord without a second’s thought if he thought something about the half-orc had hurt her, just like she would have if their situations had been reversed.

“I’m fine,” Yasha said, switching back to Common. It wasn’t a total lie. She still felt shaky, and she desperately wished to be outside in the storm, where the rain would maybe wash away the feelings left behind by… whatever that had been. “I really need to go now, though.”

Molly just nodded and Yasha got up, finding her sword and strapping it on, grateful for the weight of it. Next came her cloak, which would be soaked through in an instant, but it was wool and would keep her warm even when it was wet. Her pack would be last, and then she’d be out the door and gone.

Molly stepped forward and gave Yasha a hug as he always did, and if he noticed that she held him a little tighter than usual, he didn’t say anything about it. “Think it’s an ill omen, saying goodbye in the dark?” He asked her. “Not that I usually believe in that sort of thing.”

Yasha didn’t believe in that sort of thing usually either, but she knew how he felt. She said a word, then reached up and touched one of the chains that dangled from Molly’s horns. It began to shine with a soft, golden light and Molly laughed, shaking his head and making the light dance. “That’s much better, thank you.”

Yasha leaned her forehead against Molly’s, closing her eyes and basking in the warmth of the light for a moment. It was always hard to figure out what to say in the moments before parting. She might not come back, or it was possible that Molly wouldn’t be there to come back to, they both knew that was a risk with the lives they led. “Take care,” she finally said. “Of yourself first, and then the others,” she added, even though she knew Molly was the type to do the opposite of that particular piece of advice.

“Come back safe,” Molly said. “I don’t know where we’ll be headed next.”

“I’ll find you,” Yasha said, and kissed his forehead. “Try not to break too many hearts or acquire too many more scars while I’m gone.”

It was barely a joke, but Molly chuckled anyway. “I make no promises.” He kissed her forehead and stepped back. “Stay dry.”

“Not a chance,” Yasha said, smiling as she shouldered her pack and headed out the door. It was good to end on words that weren’t weighed down with emotion, at least that’s what she told herself as she made her way out of the tavern and into the rain. She walked out of town with her eyes on the sky, rain washing away the feeling of whatever it had been inside her mind. She watched lightning leap from cloud to cloud like stags. Once she was out of town proper she would run with the lightning for a bit, chase the sound of thunder, and go where the storm lead her.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if you want to stop in and say hi!


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